Ken Weber was asked what his reaction would be if somebody suggested his field goal that beat Moeller, 13-12, 36 years ago might be the most important single play in Princeton High School football history.

"I'd probably laugh," he said, sitting at a table in his Evendale home.

Then he did.

As much as he tries to downplay it, there's no getting around the strength of the case for Weber's 37-yard field goal and the drive that led up to it as being the turning point for a Viking program that went on to win the 1978 Class AAA – the Division I of the era – state championship and two more in the next nine seasons.

Gary Nagel, the junior quarterback who led the game-winning drive, believes it. He's wondered what might've happened if they hadn't been able to pull off what, at the time, was considered to be perhaps the upset of the decade.

"I have thought about that, really," he said. "You think, if one of those passes is intercepted, you never get there. Personally, it changed my life. The memories of the teammates and what we did together made it different."

Moeller, which opened its doors in 1960, went into the second game of the 1978 riding a 37-game winning streak that had produced three consecutive state championships. The Gerry Faust-coached Crusaders had strung together five consecutive undefeated regular seasons and dominated the annual neighborhood series with Princeton, winning 11 of the 13 games the two teams had played since first meeting in 1965.

Princeton hadn't beaten the Greater Catholic League-Crusaders since 1972, which also was the first year the Ohio High School Athletic Association sponsored a post-season football tournament. One team from each of four regions in three divisions – a total of 12 – qualified for the playoffs based on the Harbin computer ratings, and the Vikings qualified based mainly on their win over Moeller.

They went on to beat perennial state poll-champion Massillon Washington in the semifinals, a victory long-time Princeton coach Pat Mancuso said even in retirement still was the most satisfying of his career.

"It was great for Princeton and great for Southwest Ohio," Mancuso, a member of the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, told the Enquirer after announcing his retirement as coach in 1996. "That got us over the hump. People started to notice what was happening down here."

Princeton lost the next five games against Moeller, a slump that reached bottom with a 35-7 Crusader romp in 1977 at Princeton.

"We were the visiting team because Moeller didn't have a home field," recalled Weber, a backup kicker in his junior year. "(High school All-America linebacker) Bob Crable stuck the quarterback on an option and caused a fumble and picked it up and ran it back I think 60 yards for a touchdown. First quarter. That was it. It was downhill from there."

Despite Moeller's dominance in the series, the caliber of the two programs and the two teams' familiarity with each other helped make the annual game against Princeton remained among the highlights of every regular season.

"It was like a classic David-and-Goliath," Nagel said. "Moeller hadn't lost in like four years. They had twice as many players as us. It's not like we were ragtag, but a lot of guys I played youth football with went to Moeller."

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This is a page from Ken Weber's Princeton High School senior yearbook about the Vikings' historic football season, including a photo of his game-winning field goal against Moeller. (Photo by Robert Dickerson, Cincinnati Post)(Photo: Mark Schmetzer for the Enquirer)

"That was THE game in Cincinnati," Weber said. "Back then, it was huge."

Both teams were 1-0 going into the 1978 game, played on Friday, Sept. 15, again at Princeton. Moeller, ranked No. 1 in the Enquirer's coaches' poll, was coming off a sloppy 28-15 win at Findlay while the third-ranked Vikings had trounced Centerville, 40-20.

Weber, a right-footed soccer-style kicker, gave Princeton a 3-0 lead with a 24-yard field goal in the first quarter. Senior running back Ken Roundtree, who would go on to be named to the Associated Press Class AAA first-team all-state squad, expanded the lead to 10-0 with a 10-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.

The Crusaders mounted a comeback after halftime with two third-quarter touchdowns. Dave Thurkill scored on a one-yard run, but a two-point conversion pass failed, leaving Princeton with a 10-6 lead. Moeller took a 12-10 lead with a 69-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Larry Gates to senior tight end Tony Hunter, who also would be named first-team all-state.

Princeton thwarted another two-point conversion attempt, and Moeller took a 12-10 lead deep into the fourth quarter.

The Vikings caught a break when Moeller, which lost six fumbles in its win over Findlay, mishandled a punt attempt that was recovered by the Vikings on their own 37-yard line with 1:55 left on the clock.

Moving east to west – from the Interstate 75 end of the field toward the Chester Road end – Princeton methodically drove into scoring position. Nagel completed third-down passes to Roundtree and senior wide receiver Robert King, but the key play came on fourth-and-11 from Moeller's 49-yard line.

"A lot of it was a blur – crazy," Nagel recalled. "I still remember the play. It was 'Waggle Right.' Essentially, what that was is I fake a handoff to the right pivot and fake a handoff to the left, then roll out to the right.

"The pass was high, but he just made an incredible catch. He went way up in the air and made a great catch, then fell on his back. It was a huge play."

The 15-yard connection gave Princeton the ball at the 34-yard line. Nagel three to Roundtree for three yards and to King for 10 to the Crusader 21-yard line.

Meanwhile, Weber was trying to stay loose on the Princeton sideline without benefit of a practice kicking net that now is commonplace.

"I didn't want to be around anybody," said Weber, an engineer who walked-on for a year at Purdue, where his holder was – ironically – Gates. "I just wanted to be in my own world. I didn't need any added pressure."

He trotted on to the field. Holder Bobby Borden set up on the left hashmark at the 27-yard line. Scott Shardelow, who would be named third-team all-state, was the center.

"Just concentrate," Weber said, describing what was going through his mind. "I stepped it off, got ready for the snap. A lot of people don't know, but the snap was bad. It bounced before it got there. As a kicker, they tell you as soon as you see the ball go through the center's legs, you're moving. I saw it hit the ground, and I had to do a stutter step. If you look at the way the ball flew, I kind of had to lunge at it."

Still, the kick behaved exactly as if the snap was clean, hooking just as expected by a soccer player and comfortably clearing the crossbar with 13 seconds left in the game.

"It was from the good hash," Weber said. "Basically, as a soccer player, you've got a little tail on it. It was tailing the right way."

"It was unreal," Nagel said. "I remember saying, 'We (expletive) did it.' I was getting caught up in the whole moment. You think back now, being 16, you're too young to be nervous. It was more fun."

Princeton played only nine regular-season games that year, and Weber recalls that qualifying for the region's only playoff spot remained questionable until the last week of the season.

That wasn't unprecedented. Wyoming, the defending Class AA state champions, was undefeated in 1978 and wasn't able to amass enough computer points to even earn a shot at repeating.

The undefeated Vikings squeezed in and then edged Sandusky, 13-11, in the semifinals on Friday, Nov. 17, at Dayton's Welcome Stadium to earn a berth in the following Friday's final against Berea, also played in Dayton.

The 9-2 Braves led, 10-6, and were driving for what most likely would have been a clinching score when they fumbled and Borden fell on it at the Vikings' 16-yard line.

Princeton used nine plays to reach the Berea 18-yard line. Nagel hit King on a post pattern for what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown with 32 seconds left to play.

Nagel's not sure if Princeton successfully completes that title-winning drive without the confidence from having prevailed against Moeller.

"That really carried us through," said Nagel, a sales executive who played at Miami (Ohio) and lived in Chicago and Cleveland before settling in Sharonville. "When we got to the state games, because of that win earlier, our confidence built up throughout the year. You knew somebody was going to make a play. Guys were tough – hard-nosed. It was like it was destiny."

Still, in many ways, the Princeton community seemed to consider the win over Moeller at least as big – if not bigger – than winning the state championship. The school yearbook, "The Student Prince," considered it important enough to include the key stats from the Moeller game in the 1978-1979 edition. The state championship game? Just part of the post-season story.